Remember last August’s in-studio presentation to the Cartoon Network big bugs from Burbank, Atlanta, and New York? The event included Pen pitching half the “Business Time” storyboard in the main conference room. The quality here is reekish, but it gives you a chance to see and hear how good Pen is at pitching. And for what it’s worth, this is pretty much like a normal crew pitch.

I’m not sure if any of you have seen any of the interviews (like here and here) where Pen talks about his influences on Adventure Time, but I found two of three particularly revealing. The Simpsons is a given (it’s been around since Pen’s childhood).

D&D is best left for someone other than me to talk about. “D&D inspires my logic for how I go about creating each episode,” Pen says to Rene Guzman at the San Antonion-Express News. “In D&D, everything’s in front of you, you can do anything you want, it’s all up to your imagination. I like the freedom of that feeling. I like the characters to be able to have the freedom to segue away from a story if they wanted to.” Finn is “quite the justice-seeking righteous paladin.”

Here is the Channel Frederator Adventure Time sneak peak from earlier this week! Featuring an interview with the series’ creator, Pen Ward, and some never-been-seen clips. Don’t forget to check out the premiere on Monday, April 5th @ 8pm on Cartoon Network! You’re already set to watch? How math of you.

To follow up on some of these ideas.. what I’m trying to do with Adventure Time is create a cartoon that kids are going to have fond memories of after they grow up… and hopefully will be able to go back into and watch again and appreciate it a new way after they grow up.

I’m tryin to make it timeless - - - like peewee’s play house. With jokes that should be funny for adults and kids. When I was muttering about “real characters” What I mean is… when I was a kid I cared about cartoon characters. I cared about Lisa Simpson when she loved her substitute [Read more…]

I love wandering around the Adventure Time studio; you never know what’s going to show up. Today, it was Nick Jennings’, Pat McHale’s, and Pen’s personal approval rubber stamps (and the original artwork).